Lizzie Deignan: 'For me, cycling is less important than it's ever been'

When her rivals line up in Bradford next Saturday for the UCI world road race, Lizzie Deignan can be confident that none know the course like she does.

Every lump in the road, every tricky corner, every narrow bridge: she’s navigated them all, countless times. “I’ve ridden the route so many times just by accident, before it was even announced as the women’s road race,” she said this week. “Hundreds. Thousands. Every time I wheeled my bike out of my parents’ garage I turned right and I was on the worlds circuit.”

It can surely be no coincidence that the joint race organisers, Welcome to Yorkshire, the tourism body for God’s own county, routed the women’s course right by her parents’ house in Otley. If it weren’t for a big hedge, Carol and John Armitstead would be able sit in their back garden and watch their youngest daughter whizz past up the hill to Farnley with the rest of the peloton as she attempts to win her second rainbow jersey.

Related: Lizzie Deignan takes Women's Tour glory by two seconds

“As soon as it was announced, I thought: I have to do that race,” she said. There was just was just one small problem, albeit a nice one: she got pregnant last year and in September welcomed to the world her first daughter, Orla.

Three days before she gave birth, her determination to become world champion again on home turf was undimmed. Instead of sitting on the sofa mainlining biscuits like other women past their due date, she was out in her Lycra, a bump jutting out above her cross bar, with her husband, Philip, then still riding for Team Sky.

“Funnily enough, that last bike ride included the finishing circuit for the worlds in Harrogate. I remember thinking it was pretty surreal that I was aiming to be racing up the final climb in a year’s time and my life was about to change completely,” she said. “Looking back, I had zero idea just how much it was about to change.”

The plan, post birth, was for the couple to both carry on racing professionally. “Before you’re parents you think: ‘Ah, it’ll be all right, what’s the big deal? She’ll fit in somewhere,’” laughs Deignan.

It didn’t take many sleepless nights before Philip decided to retire at the end of the 2018 season when his Sky contract ended. He is now Orla’s primary carer and his wife is endlessly grateful: “We decided it was better that he focus on looking after Orla and supporting me in what would be a very difficult two years. I’m so glad he has because it has made all the difference to our family.”

There were plenty of times on maternity leave when Deignan doubted her ability to return to racing, though she saddled up again the minute she got the all-clear from her doctor, six weeks post-delivery: “It’s just so overwhelming in those first few months when you are absolutely exhausted and she wasn’t sleeping. I breastfed her as well for the first six months, so I was going out training for three hours, coming home and feeding her and going out again.”

So few professional bike racers return after having a baby that information on how to do it safely was limited. Dame Sarah Storey, the Paralympic cyclist who won two world titles 10 months after giving birth to her second child in 2018, was a key source of advice. “She breast fed until her kids were about two, and I was keen to understand from her how I was going to manage the feeds,” says Deignan, who is one of only two mothers on the UCI world pro tour circuit.

The other is Marta Bastianelli, the Italian ranked fifth in the world, who gave birth in 2014. But perhaps her fiercest rival in Yorkshire next week will be the Dutch rider Marianne Vos, multiple world champion in three cycling disciplines, who has had an incredible year coming back from injury. Deignan might be the Yorkshire favourite but the bookies’ money will be on Vos, or fellow Dutchwomen Annemiek van Vleuten or the reigning champion, her old Boels Dolmans teammate Anna van der Breggen.

She knows everyone in Otley will be expecting her to win but has told herself that she’s got nothing to lose. “I’ve already won a world title when I went in as the out-and-out favourite [in 2015] and I delivered as the favourite. Whereas this is a completely different ball game. I am going in with an opportunity to win if I have my best legs on the day.”

Not being the favourite means she will race differently from last time: “I won’t be the one attacking and making the race. I will be holding my cards close to my chest and very much playing a tactical race, which is not what I am used to. But I am really excited about it. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

These days, riding her bike is a welcome break from the sometimes monotonous drudgery of parenting, she says: “For me, being a full-time mum would be the hardest job in the world, without a doubt. If you’re doing it properly, if you’re all in and being the best mum in the world 24 hours a day without getting that break when it’s just about you and your own focus, well, those women have my utmost respect.”

Becoming a mother has changed her perspective: “Cycling is less important than it’s ever been but I’m more motivated than I’ve ever been. I go out and I love riding my bike now. I have a perspective now having taken a year away from professional sport just how lucky I am to do it as a job.” She doesn’t think she has changed much but is overall much happier, following a stressful few years which nearly saw her banned from competing in the Olympics after she missed three drugs tests. “For me,being happy means I’m a better bike rider.”

Deignan, now 30, was surprised to read a recent report that she would retire after the Tokyo Olympics next year. “I was quite shocked by that headline. My immediate goals are the world championships and then the Olympic Games and I haven’t thought about my goals after that. What will determine my retirement are so many unknown things, so it’s far too soon to announce my retirement.”

Lizzie Deignan is an ambassador for the cycle insurance provider Cycleplan. For advice on how to keep you and your bike safe visit www.cycleplan.co.uk